Well folks this is where the rubber meets the road. After a nine hour day on the actual highway we arrived in time to unpack, strip a bed, make three beds, and organize our advent calender before a late dinner. I am currently sitting in the dark midst a Zana meltdown. Dinner at a different time complete with total adult conversation and devotions with no known carols can be a little devastating for a three year old. She quivers with the excitement of coming for Christmas but vegetable harvest soup instead of her cousins did not meet her little, tiny hopes and dreams. She clung to me like a limpet and asked to go home. Perhaps tomorrow I will whip up a tiny dinner a little more gluten full for my little baby girl.
So from that very domestic update lets talk mobs. When is the last one you saw one? When is the last time you were in one? I am not talking a football game but a football game out of control? We just do not have the masses of people that many South Asians live amongst. Farming communities do exist but they are exactly that, communities. People live on top of each other. Think of everyone in America moving to Wisconsin. Out of control!
Two pictures permeate my mind in this chapter. The reality that as these people gathered in mass to celebrate Jesus they were a mob. Also they shouted about peace. There are two things about this picture that would be better understood by a South Asian. The masses of people jostling and shouting. Masses. One year we acted out the Passion Week in our small school. The boy who played Jesus rode a bike in lieu of a donkey. It sounds hookey but as the week progressed something beautiful happened with that group of children and in the teachers. But back to the Triumphal Entry. The boy playing Jesus started sedately riding his bike but then something happened. He took off like a bat out of hell and there we were running like mad after Jesus on his bike. We were sprinting, waving and shouting and sweaty and hot. To tell the truth I was a little irritated. The holy moment was down right chaotic. I think that chaos must have been true of the masses around Jesus. Masses of sweaty folks, middle schoolers and such, in waves around you. Wild.
Secondly the word peace. I think we have this idea of peace being between family members, peace with our three year old, just a little peace and quiet. But South Asians may understand this better. Like the people shouting they feel the iron fist of injustice perhaps more directly than any of us have. Many of them feel fear in sending their children to school. Fear of their boys being executed. Fear of attack. Fear of violence. Fear of unrest. Fear instead of peace. In the very same chapter is a story about a tax collector. A real reminder of the horror and injustice the people of Israel were facing. This story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem needs to be seen not in the light of children waving palm branches through the church cutely till they stop and there is a little peace and quiet. No! This is to be seen as a scene rife with uncomfortable mob mentality and a deep need for peace. A desperate need for peace.
May we like Jesus weep over the need for peace, the need for Jesus, in the many unreached peoples of South Asia. May we pray and cry over them as Jesus did over Jerusalem. May our nights of earthly peace cause us to give massive cries of delight in our heavenly peace! May we have a bit of a mobbish crazy worship time too. A little more chaos!
So from that very domestic update lets talk mobs. When is the last one you saw one? When is the last time you were in one? I am not talking a football game but a football game out of control? We just do not have the masses of people that many South Asians live amongst. Farming communities do exist but they are exactly that, communities. People live on top of each other. Think of everyone in America moving to Wisconsin. Out of control!
Two pictures permeate my mind in this chapter. The reality that as these people gathered in mass to celebrate Jesus they were a mob. Also they shouted about peace. There are two things about this picture that would be better understood by a South Asian. The masses of people jostling and shouting. Masses. One year we acted out the Passion Week in our small school. The boy who played Jesus rode a bike in lieu of a donkey. It sounds hookey but as the week progressed something beautiful happened with that group of children and in the teachers. But back to the Triumphal Entry. The boy playing Jesus started sedately riding his bike but then something happened. He took off like a bat out of hell and there we were running like mad after Jesus on his bike. We were sprinting, waving and shouting and sweaty and hot. To tell the truth I was a little irritated. The holy moment was down right chaotic. I think that chaos must have been true of the masses around Jesus. Masses of sweaty folks, middle schoolers and such, in waves around you. Wild.
Secondly the word peace. I think we have this idea of peace being between family members, peace with our three year old, just a little peace and quiet. But South Asians may understand this better. Like the people shouting they feel the iron fist of injustice perhaps more directly than any of us have. Many of them feel fear in sending their children to school. Fear of their boys being executed. Fear of attack. Fear of violence. Fear of unrest. Fear instead of peace. In the very same chapter is a story about a tax collector. A real reminder of the horror and injustice the people of Israel were facing. This story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem needs to be seen not in the light of children waving palm branches through the church cutely till they stop and there is a little peace and quiet. No! This is to be seen as a scene rife with uncomfortable mob mentality and a deep need for peace. A desperate need for peace.
May we like Jesus weep over the need for peace, the need for Jesus, in the many unreached peoples of South Asia. May we pray and cry over them as Jesus did over Jerusalem. May our nights of earthly peace cause us to give massive cries of delight in our heavenly peace! May we have a bit of a mobbish crazy worship time too. A little more chaos!
No comments:
Post a Comment